How To Love
by YourPoetrySucks
Summary: Sai's never been good with emotions. This is a bit of complicated one. PLEASE R&R!


** Okay, like, my brain just totally fried with my previous stories, so I shall take a fresh start from those and move on to a new story. My last ones didn't really have any plots but I swear I will get better. I SWEAR ON ALL OF JAV-CHAN-SAMA'S FANFICS EVER MADE! **

** Anyways, if you aren't a SaiSakuSasu fan then just shut up. I'm not really one either, by I do love SasuSaku with a third party. So, if you have an issue with that, you can just stop right here (although knowing most people, you'll probably keep reading). Just don't flame please. I'm very sensitive. And I'm talking motion-sensor bomb sensitive. It doesn't take much to set me off. But if you step on a mine, expect to be blown up.**

** This is a songfic as well as excerpts from the How To Love article on wikihow. I wrote this because I was looking up the lyrics to the Lil Wayne song, and there was an actual How to article on How to LOve. First person I thought of was Sai. He'd look something like this up...-_-  
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><p><em><strong> **~ ~HOW TO LOVE~ ~**<strong>_

_Love is both an action and a feeling. The action of love generates a blissful feeling called by the same name. When the action stops, the blissful feeling is replaced with pain. There is a similar feeling called lust which may be confused with love. You need to decipher between the two in order to have a healthy heart. Every person is capable of great love (and its opposite, fear, which generates all painful emotions such as hate, greed and jealousy)._

_While there are many different ways to define love and there are many different ways to love someone(or even yourself), here is a general guide to loving._

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><p>Sai, having known his life with not many emotions, relied on research to help him understand certain things most humans take for granted. He had struggled with friendships, happiness, and most recently love. It doesn't take much these days. Anyone could look up anything. All Sai had to do was type in, "How to make friends," or "How to be happy," and wikiHow or eHow was there to help him out. His most troubling challenge, though, was looking up How to Love. Love is an emotion that usually has to be displayed to the person, otherwise, they have a hard time trying to use it. But sai didn't give up so easy. He had gotten Naruto to be his friend, and he had used his smiles to make him more approachable, so why should he stop because he didn't understand? Naruto knew how to do plenty of things that no one had taught him.<p>

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><p><strong><em>1. Know It. <em>**_First of all, you should know if you like someone or not._

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><p>Of course he liked Sakura. He hadn't realized it, but after a handy search bar, he had all the symptoms of attraction. He thought about her, drew portraits of her, and he had a strange impulse to protect her. He had called her Ugly, because from what he read, it was better to call girls the opposite of what they are. Hence him calling Ino Beautiful all the time (aN: I love Ino, but you gotta use your logic on this one).

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><p><em><strong>2. Watch. <strong>see if the one you are interested in is engaged with someone else, if yes then wait till they break up or leave him, if not then see he/she too likes you or not._

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><p><em>You had a lot of crooks try to steal your heart<em>

_ Never really had luck, couldn't ever figure out _

_ how to love_

_ how to love_

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><p>He had watched a million times over. Sakura had been with plenty of people. There was no question that she wasn't beautiful. Her forehead, a trait she had long looked at with forlorn, adorned the cuteness of her face. Sai wasn't surprised that she had dated. Naruto, Lee, Kiba, even Genma - relationships that were like a reckless jet, going up, and then crashing hopelessly into the ground. Sakura had gotten her heart broken, and Sai had patiently been there. When she stood in the rain, hiding her tears, there was his ink umbrella, there to cover her head. Even when she was with someone, he was there for her.<p>

Of course, the one man that always had grips on her heart was that man.

Sasuke Uchiha. Breaking her heart was like a skipped CD - it went back, and then restarted itself, over and over. Every day, failed missions would sink her deeper into depression. Sai had decided to cheat a little, even though her heart was into Sasuke, _he _knew how hopeless she was, and _he _knew the inevitable.

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><p><strong><em>3. Say it. <em>** _When you say the words "I Love You", they should carry with them the desire to show someone that you love them, not what you simply want to feel. When you say it, make sure you really mean it and are willing to do anything for that special person_.

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><p><em>You had a lot of moments that didn't last forver<em>

_Now you in this corner tryna put it together_

_How to love_

_How to love_

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><p>"I love you." It had been so sudden. Sakura had been healing Sai and Naruto after a mission where they had been reckless (as usual - Naruto had to exert himself, and Sai just <em>had <em>to be a friend), and Naruto was knocked out with a concussion. As far as anyone was concerned, it was the two of them. Sai had been staring at the top of her pink locks - her head was bent while she healed his cracked ribs. Not even a nanosecond after he had said it, her head shot up, and his onyx eyes were staring into her green ones.

"W-what do you mean, you love me?"

"I mean...I think I do." He averted her gaze. He wasn't quite sure how he should go about something so serious. He had never been a conversation person really, but something told him that he had to be natural. Of course, when you looked into Sakura's emerald eyes, deep and filled with the daily stresses of being a medic-nin, and knowledge beyond compare, even the wisest words became like gibberish. "I don't know. I just was researching, and I realized that I seem to have love. I mean, I've got the symptoms - I always think about you, I want to be there for you...and when we talk, I get this feeling...I can't-" He was silenced by Sakura's finger on his lips. She chuckled softly.

"You think you have love, huh?" Her voice was a low murmur. "Like it's a condition. Do you know what love is, Sai?"

"An intense romantic or sexual attraction to someone as a verb, or an intense feeling of deep affection," Sai recited automatically. "You know, not like loving Konoha, but like..."

"Naruto and Hinata?" Sakura smiled again. it was a soft one, filled with pain. "You think you love me like Naruto loves Hinata? Or the reverse - I've never known that you even had feelings for me."

"I didn't know how to tell you."

"Hm." Sakura stared off, thinking. Her eyes were dangerously shiny. "I think..." She blinked and suddenly, moisture, which had been in danger to fall, disappeared. "That this feeling will go away really soon." She smiled, and strangely, it was like looking into a mirror. A fake smile. One that dismissed you out of any uncomfortable situation.

"But I-" Sai tried to sit up and grab her so she wouldn't leave, but Sakura nudged his ribs, causing him to wince and lay back down.

"You need your strength, Sai," she said sternly. "I won't be hearing from Tsunade if you shatter a bone on my watch." She closed her eyes, exasperated, and flicked him on the head. "Next time you shouldn't be so reckless!" Her expression softened, but he only briefly caught it before she turned and walked off.

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><p><strong><em>4. Empathize.<em> **_Put yourself in someone else's shoes. Rather than impose your own expectations or attempt to control them, to understand how they feel, where they come from, and who they are. Realize how they could also love you back just as well._

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><p><em>For a second you were here<em>  
><em>Now you over there<em>  
><em>It's hard not to stare, the way you moving your body<em>  
><em>Like you never had a love<em>  
><em>Never had a love<em>

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><p>He had been...bewildered. And a bit...upset? Not very often was he rejected. He had never done anything to call for it, but it had thrown him off, so fast. He had expected for things to go smoothly. Follow the steps, and everything would work out...right?<p>

But love was more complicated than that.

The next step was to empathize. And when Sai did, he realized that Sakura composed herself well for the situation she was in. She always could muster up a smile, despite the situation she was in. Maybe she wasn't the strongest, and her bond with Sasuke and efforts to save him was null and void compared to what Naruto had done, she put her heart into everything. she had knocked him, KIba, and Lee out in order to kill Sasuke. Sai knew how hopeless it possibly could be, he knew that she had done it all out of love. She healed people because she loved helping. She may not have put her life on the line often, but her love was larger than most. Her sympathy gave her mercy on others, even when her temper flared at times. She showed empathy, and Sai realized that he should too.

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><p><em><strong>5. Love unconditionally<strong>_._ If you cannot love another person without attaching stipulations, then it is not love at all, but deep-seated opportunism (one who makes the most of an advantage, often unmindful of others). If your interest is not in the other person as such, but rather in how that person can enhance your experience of life, then it is not unconditional. If you have no intention of improving that person's life, or allowing that person to be themselves and accepting them as they are, and not who you want them to be, then you are not striving to love them unconditionally._

_**6****_._ Expect nothing in return**. That doesn't mean you should allow someone to mistreat or undervalue you. It means that giving love does not guarantee receiving love. Try loving just for the sake of love. Realize that someone may have a different way of showing his or her love for you; do not expect to be loved back in exactly the same way.  
><em>

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><p><em>You never credit yourself, so when you got older<em>  
><em>It's seems like you came back ten times over<em>  
><em>Now you're sitting here in this damn corner<em>  
><em>Looking through all your thoughts and looking over your shoulders<em>

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><p>Finally, after much more effort than Sai had hoped for, Sakura had given him a chance. When he asked her why she had been so sudden, she told him that she knew it was hopeless, pursuing him. That there was no way that he would come back to Konoha alive. And after the near death experience they had went through during their most recent battle <strong>(an: Watch Naruto vs. Sasuke OVA. you'll understand). **she came to the conclusion that he woul dnever love Konoha, let alone her.

Sai didn't question her. He just met her halfway. This is what she wanted, and he was willing to give it to her. He treated her like a girlfriend, even though she had just wanted to go on one date with him. He loved her unconditionally, and so he figured that he shouldn't make Sakura love him - he should just prove that he loves her. He didn't expect the reciprocation, and despite the fact that the how-to had told him not to allow somoen to mistreat or undervalue him, he knew Sakura would never do that. He simply treated her like a princess, and until she told him to stop (not the "You didn't have to"s and "You shouldn't have"s that he normally got) flat out, then he would continue to give her what Sasuke should've been doing.

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><p><strong> <em>7. Realize it can be lost<em>**_._ If you realize that you can lose the one you love, then you have a greater appreciation of what you have. Think how lucky you are to have someone to love. Don't make an idol of the person you love. This will place them under undue pressure and will likely result in you losing them.

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><p>Well, needless to say, both of them were wrong. Sasuke did come back. Even though it had been on his own accord, he had still been detained, and had been given the death sentence. Sakura made a complete u-turn. She had cried on Naruto, Sai, and Kakashi, and sobbed on Tsunade's death, begging for them to let him go. She even promised to marry him, in hopes that maybe having a family would make Sasuke less dangerous. Tsunade asked team 7's consent, and Naruto and Kakashi approved, and...So did Sai. It was to be expected. At the wedding, he had told himself over and over again, "Realize it can be lost."<p>

Love can be lost.

In this case, it had been, but he was still lucky. He was glad to have her to love, even from afar.

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><p><em>Oh,<em>  
><em> See I just want you to know<em>  
><em> That you deserve the best<em>  
><em> You're beautiful<em>  
><em> You're beautiful<em>  
><em> Yeah<em>

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><p><strong><em>8<em>****_. Never stop loving._** _Even if you have been hurt before you should not stop giving love._

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><p><p>

Sai had almost missed this step. Because he was doing it anyways. So when Sakura Haruno became Sakura Uchiha,

When Team 7 was reunited,

When Sakura had her baby girl

Sai never, ever stopped loving her.

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><p><p>

**Okay! Okay! it was bad! Yes, Sakura did kind of ignore Sai's love and used him to feel a void that Sasuke wasn't around to fill, but...you know, life isn't all apple pie and ice cream.**

**Maybe if I get some reviews...I'll give you some pie and ice cream. **

**Going once? Twice?**

**YOU BETTER REVIEW BITCHES OR I'LL FIND YOU. Lol, just kidding. No, not really. Yeah, you better review, but I don't think I'll find you if I don't. I mean, don't test your luck though. Click that button. You click it and write me some words.**

** ~Remember YourPoetrySucks **


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